


Serial Rediscovery

by brainofck



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Amnesia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-29
Updated: 2011-07-29
Packaged: 2017-10-21 22:03:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brainofck/pseuds/brainofck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daniel has a run-in with the NID, and can't remember anything about the SGC, particularly not SG-1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Serial Rediscovery

December 12

"Daniel!"

Professor Daniel Jackson hesitated in his mad dash across the quad, turning to see who was calling him. Apparently it was a very attractive, very blond, leather-and-jean-clad woman just parking her motorcycle in the small bicycle lot by the sciences building. Daniel didn't recognize her. He turned and continued hurrying towards class. Some other Daniel on the quad, obviously.

"Daniel! Wait!"

Or maybe not. She had dashed after him and caught him by the shoulder. To his disgust, partially graded exams went flying and his books, precariously balanced under his arm, went crashing to the ground. The woman seemed not to notice. She flung her arms around him, squeezing him in a surprisingly tight hug, kissing him on the cheek. Through his irritation, he heard her excited babbling.

"Oh, God, it's really you! I can't believe it! We've been looking for you for _months_ , Daniel! We've been so worried! I didn't even say anything to the Colonel, I didn't want to get his hopes up when I wasn't sure..."

It took her a few moments to notice that he was uncomfortably not returning her embrace. She let go and stepped back and he immediately began gathering up the drifting exam pages, thankful it was a calm day.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, suddenly flustered. She started helping him, moving quickly to capture the few exams that were actually moving farther away in the breeze.

"Do I know you?" he asked as they collected the pages.

He saw her hesitate, then grab the last set of pages. She brought her pile and handed it to him, neatly stacked. _They would be_ , he thought, then wondered where _that_ little voice in his head had come from. Now she was looking at him. A thoughtful, searching look that he felt he should be able to interpret.

"Do you?" she asked in reply. The burble of excitement in her voice had been replaced with something more matter-of-fact. It sounded flat, maybe disappointed. Daniel scowled.

"No, I don't think so," he said firmly, "And right now, I really don't have a second to spare. I've got seventy-five students taking an exam in..." he checked his watch, "...in three minutes." He knelt to pick up his books and continued across the campus, now nearly running. To his annoyance, she kept pace with him easily.

"Daniel, this can't wait!" she said, beginning to sound angry and frustrated.

"I'm very certain it can," he said testily. "I have office hours tomorrow. The department office can give you the details." He took the steps to the building two at a time.

He didn't turn around to see her stopped at the bottom behind him, lips pursed, thinking. She turned and walked slowly back to her bike.

Daniel thought about the encounter all through the exam as he graded the Arch 10 papers and kept an eye on his Comparative Linguistics students. He couldn't get past the feeling that he _did_ know her, somehow. But he couldn't place her. He found himself hoping that she wasn't an old colleague from graduate school that he should have recognized and to whom he had just been unspeakably rude.

Daniel was happy these days, but his recent change of fates was still new and, frankly, after years of being a pariah in his field, hard to accept. But this opportunity had come at the ideal time, a small private university looking to build a stronger, better curriculum in Archaeology and Anthropology, who were willing to overlook his professional indiscretions in exchange for a new faculty member who could _be_ the Archaeology department and take on Linguistics, too. Even teach miscellaneous languages in a pinch. A lot of bang for their limited buck for any school willing to hold their noses and ignore his past eccentricities.

After everything that had happened in the past several months, he was grateful for his recent good fortune, and the thought of having been hideously, personally insulting to _anyone_ in the field, no matter how inconsequential that person might be, made him feel slightly ill.

He couldn't shake the feeling that what had happened there on the quad was wrong. He was still thinking about it long after he got back to his apartment that night. When he sat under the comforter with his journal, he spent much more time than he usually would on such an insignificant personal event.

* * *

"Maybe he was being surveilled."

"He didn't recognize me, sir. I'm sure of it. Daniel's never been that good an actor."

She could practically hear him thinking over the cellular connection.

"You're only about 10 hours from here. I'll rent a mini-van, throw the stuff in the back, and I'll be there in the morning."

* * *

Jack sat in the fading light thinking about the best strategy for approaching Daniel.

He set down the phone and went back to the bedroom. Reached under the other pillow and took out the book he had been reading and re-reading in the eight months since Daniel had disappeared. Budge. He smiled to himself.

They had cleared out Daniel's apartment. Not so much as a paper clip or a roll of toilet paper was left behind. But they must not have been particularly well connected in the SGC. They had hit Daniel's office, but apparently they had not been able to take everything, the way they could on the outside. They had taken his hard drive and all the loose electronic media. They had taken the notebooks that were open and in progress. Clearly, they had been targeting his current projects, and Jack had a good idea which one in particular.

But they obviously did not know how Daniel Jackson ticked. He kept his most precious belongings close to him, near his heart, and that was there, in his office, where he pursued the love of his life.

So among other ratty, grubby, many-times repaired volumes - every single book from the suitcase that went to Abydos, in fact - they had left Budge. All the white space in the text was filled with Daniel's notes and invective, including the very rare acknowledgement. The pages divided by little folded scraps of paper, with scribbles in various languages, most in Daniel's own writing, but many in other hands and scripts.

Jack had opened it initially because he could. He was pretty sure that Daniel didn't realize that Jack even knew of the book's existence. Jack suspected Daniel didn't want people to know that his Budge was one of his most treasured possessions. It was always tucked away in some dark corner of the office. Except those unusual moments when Jack would find it lying out, by some translation that was driving Daniel to his wits' end.

So when he had the book in hand, Jack had to look, and what he had found had been the horror that Daniel was lost to him, stolen, maybe forever, and he had touched Daniel's words in despairing anger, then slept with the book under the other pillow.

The Budge would convince Daniel. More than the pictures from missions, the commissary, the elevator. When Daniel saw Budge, he would understand.

* * *

December 13

Grading exams was boring, but soothing after his first semester teaching in years. What had he been thinking? Two large introductory classes, a small practical seminar, and _Conversational French_? Well, he'd gotten the seminar projects over with right away, the French exams had been oral, and he only had about ten more Linguistics papers to get through, then three blissful weeks to think about his own work and his plans for next term. It was one year when he was thrilled to have no holiday obligations.

Still, he felt a guilty sense of relief when someone unexpectedly knocked on his door just as he was thinking of breaking for lunch.

There were two of them. One a pretty, slim blonde woman, with an apologetic smile. The other, an older man, a little taller than himself, graying, with deep brown eyes. They seemed familiar somehow, but he was sure he had never met either one of them before. The woman was looking at him expectantly.

"Can I help you?" he asked. He felt a nervous, twitchy smile flicker on his lips and was irritated with himself. He thought he had mastered that reflex years ago.

"The department office said you weren't scheduled for any more office hours this semester, so we tracked you down here," the woman replied.

"Sorry about that," he replied, moving out of the way as she stepped through the door with the assurance of one who expects to be welcome. "My grades are due by tomorrow at noon. I really don't have time for meetings with. . . Um. I really have to apologize. Do I know you?" He heard his own tone, growing impatient, irritation clearly showing through the thinnest polite veneer.

They had made their way into his living room. The man was taking in Daniel's belongings and living space in a way that screamed Daniel was being judged. Daniel couldn't imagine what gave the man the right to judge him, yet watching his face, Daniel found himself becoming anxious and unhappy. The man seemed disappointed, maybe angry. Something in him wished the man would smile.

The woman was looking at him quizzically.

"Well, yes. At the very least, I crashed into you on your way to your exam yesterday morning. We chased your papers all over the green."

He blinked at her in surprise.

"Are you sure you're not confusing me with someone else?" he asked.

"We're here to get your help on a project," the man interrupted. "My name is Jack O'Neill. This is Samantha Carter." He sounded calm, despite the anger in his eyes.

"What kind of a project, Mr. O'Neill?" Daniel asked.

"A translation," the woman, replied.

"I'm sorry. I rarely do freelance translating. I can refer you to some excellent graduate students…"

She set down her satchel on the coffee table and began rummaging through it, drawing out a notebook and handing it to him. "We need _you_ , Daniel. You thought this was a code. But you said you were fairly certain it was a simple one, based on an underlying text in Goa'uld."

Daniel didn't take the book. He suddenly knew who they were. He began to edge his way towards the kitchen. His gun was in the drawer in the island nearest the door.

"What do you mean, 'I' thought?" he said, surprised at how calm he was.

"You know us, Daniel," the woman replied. "Until you disappeared eight months ago, we worked on projects like this together every day. We're confident that this is the reason you were abducted..."

Daniel had reached the drawer. The man was watching him suspiciously, but it was too late now. Daniel yanked the drawer open, and he had the gun.

"Get out," he snarled. "I know who you are." The woman's eyes widened, but the man was just watching him appraisingly. Daniel dodged around the counter to the phone.

"Carter," was all the man said.

Suddenly, they were both moving. She went one way, he went the other. Daniel was reaching for the phone, and in moment of panicked confusion didn't decide what to do quickly enough. The woman grabbed the phone from him, the man pinned him face down on the counter of the kitchen island, his arm immobilized against its surface, gun pointing uselessly away.

"What's this about, Daniel?" the man asked him. Still calm. Almost gentle. A warm whisper in his ear. "Why are you so afraid that you have a gun in your house? I don't think you've had a gun in your own home in the entire time you worked for the SGC."

"You think I don't know who you are?! I don't know what you did to me, but I remember being abducted. They told me you might come back for me." He was beginning to feel hysterical. "I won't do anything you want, and I won't leave here with you. Get out." His fingers were going numb in the man's tight grip. The woman was suddenly in front of him, and plucked the gun from his hand. The she laid something else down on the counter by his head.

"Look , Daniel," she said. The man loosened his hold so that Daniel could see. She was laying out photographs in neat rows. Himself with them and others. Working in an office that he knew must be his from the nature of the clutter. They were almost always in uniform, bearing odd insignia that he didn't recognize but which certainly looked American. These were not pictures of the captive of terrorists in the jungles of Peru. There were pictures of him with them, smiling, hanging off each other, dirty, but happy, and he was clearly armed, clearly one of them.

As he looked, the man behind him, O'Neill, he reminded himself, gradually let him go. The woman, Carter, put the safety back on his gun and laid it on the counter next to the photos.

"This can't be right," he said. He picked up one picture of himself in someone's back yard, probably O'Neill's, as he was the one presiding over the steaks on the grill. Daniel was hiding behind a tree with the biggest water rifle he had ever seen, his target apparently the huge black man easily visible in the bushes about 50 yards away.

"You wanna tell us why not?" O'Neill asked.

"They told me that I had been abducted on a dig in Peru. When I couldn't remember any of it, they said amnesia was not an unusual post-traumatic stress symptom. They said it was usually temporary, but that it was sometimes permanent... They did something to me, didn't they?"

"Probably," Carter replied. "If it was NID, sir, we can't stay here long. They'll have this place monitored."

"Was that who you were calling, Daniel?" Jack asked. Daniel couldn't stop staring at the pictures. The pictures of him working in a strange office that he knew was his own. He could see them. His books. All over the desk and worktable.

"Hmmmm?" he replied.

"Daniel, were you calling the NID?"

"I don't know," he replied. "They told me there was a risk that the group that had abducted me would come back for me. I didn't understand why or how that could happen, but they gave me a number to call..."

O'Neill was thinking.

"Grab some clothes and a toothbrush, Daniel. 'They' _are_ coming back for you, but they're not the Shining Path." Carter disappeared toward the back of the apartment.

"I can't just leave!" Daniel said. "I have grades to turn in!"

O'Neill rolled his eyes, but Carter had already returned from his bedroom with a large duffel. She set it on the couch and began transferring his neat stacks of graded and un-graded papers into it.

"If we can get you into the van," she said reassuringly, "We can move around town while you finish. I'll deliver your stuff up to wherever it needs to go, and we can hit the road after that."

"Major, who put you in charge of this operation?" O'Neill huffed. But Daniel noticed he didn't object. In fact, he was headed back to Daniel's bedroom, and to Daniel's alarm, he realized that they were packing for him. He tagged into the bedroom, and headed off the man to prevent him rifling through his dresser. Which just meant he detoured into the closet.

"Major, _retired_ , sir. This is a civilian operation. No privileges of rank here." This must be a running joke of some kind between them. Daniel could hear the laughter in her voice. From inside the closet, he heard mock grumbling. O'Neill emerged with shirts, light jacket, winter coat, all yanked from their hangers, and boots under his arm. Carter appeared in the doorway with the duffel. Daniel stuffed socks and underwear into it, and O'Neill put the rest of the clothes on top.

Carter vanished into his bathroom, reappeared with his shaving kit and a toothbrush.

"Do you always do this to me?" he squeaked, as O'Neill went back into his closet for a couple of pairs of extra pants.

* * *

The afternoon had gone relatively smoothly. Jack had objected to finishing the exams, but Daniel had been adamant, and Jack figured under the circumstances, he should probably pick his battles, where Daniel was concerned.

Jack could see the suspicion in Daniel's eyes, and Jack knew his friend was still trying to decide if he was crazy to have let two people he didn't remember whisk him away without a word to anyone. The pictures were pretty good evidence. But now that the heat of the moment had passed, and they were just driving off to nowhere, Jack could feel Daniel's eyes following them, practically hear the wheels turning.

Jack thought about Budge. But he suddenly felt that Budge wouldn't matter so much after all. It could just as easily prove that Daniel had been his captive as his friend. Sucked his teeth and kept his face neutral. No point in giving Daniel any more things to think about, like why Jack was so furious.

"Whatcha got for me, Carter?" he asked, more to distract himself than anything else. She would have said if there was anything to worry about. She was sitting in the chair behind the passenger seat with some equipment Jack had picked up in the bad old days.

"Nothing about Daniel or us on any of the law enforcement bands we can pick up," she replied. She had the far away look people got when they were listening intently. "Also, I don't think they've got anybody on us. I haven't seen a tail, and I doubt they have the manpower or organization out here to be relaying us off. I think we got away clean."

Jack nodded. That was what he had thought, too, but it was good to have a second pair of eyes.

"So, what are we doing?" Daniel asked from the back seat. It was the first time he had spoken since he had sent Carter in with his grades.

"The way I see it, we have three things to accomplish. First, I want that code cracked. If that's the reason NID went to all this trouble, it must be something big. I also want to know what they did to scramble your brain, and figure out how to undo it." He glanced back in the rearview mirror to see Daniel's eyes shift away. "And we need to be sure they don't get their hands on you or us in the process. Man, it would be nice to have Teal'c along for this ride right now."

"I was thinking about that, sir. I think we should try to talk to General Hammond."

* * *

Daniel sat across from O'Neill - _Jack_ , he reminded himself - in the diner, trying not to watch him too closely. He was fascinating. They both were, really. Evidence that his mind was not entirely his own. Evidence of pieces of his life that he had lost. But there was something _else_ about Jack. It hadn't taken Daniel long to recognize it. And now every time Jack caught him looking, he had to fight the nervous twitchy smile. He couldn't help the blush, though he hoped in the red light of late afternoon it would go unnoticed.

Carter - no, _Sam, Sam, Sam_ , he chanted - had excused herself and he and Jack were sitting alone in the booth.

"Jack?" he started tentatively.

Those dark eyes flicked up. He licked a bit of ice cream and pie crust from the corner of his mouth. Daniel had his undivided attention. He felt like an idiot.

"Nevermind," he said, and refocused on his own food, which he realized he had barely touched.

"Come on, Daniel. What's on your mind? You've hardly said anything all afternoon and I take that to mean that you're right on the edge of a complete freakout."

Jack seemed very calm. But worried. Being the object of Jack's concern flustered Daniel. He took a deep breath and tried again.

"What were we, to each other, you know, before this happened to me? I feel like there's something going on between us, but I can't figure out what." There. That wasn't too bad. Jack could take that any way he chose.

Jack looked surprised.

"OK. That wasn't what I was expecting."

"Sorry," Daniel said. He was, too. What kind of question was that, anyway?

"No. It's alright. We've been a lot of things. We've been friends for years." His lips twitched in what Daniel hopefully thought was a fond memory. "And we've been ready to rip each other's throats out on more than one occasion. Man, we know how to piss each other off..." Daniel's heart sank. "We've been teammates. Technically, I'm your commanding officer, but more than half the time it's been you running the show and me just along to haul your ass home if things went to hell. You helped me see a reason to live when I was ready to throw it all away. And you let me hold you through the worst withdrawal I think I've ever seen. Um..." Jack appeared to pause for thought. Daniel could hardly breathe. "And you've died for me. At least twice. So I suppose you might notice some sort of connection." Jack gave him a lopsided smile, and turned his attention back to his pie.

"I've missed you," Jack said.

* * *

The hotel was middle quality and nondescript. They left everything but the barest necessities in the van, parked directly outside the door. Daniel drew the straw for the first watch. They agreed to walk a perimeter every half hour, but mostly, Jack wanted one of them to be awake and alert in case of trouble. As the other two settled down for the night, Daniel sat in the chair at the foot of the bed with a pen light and wrote in his journal. It had been a strange, crazy day. Sam had given him the photographs. He slipped them into the pocket in the front of the notebook. When he was done, he walked the perimeter, then went back inside and pretended he wasn't trying to watch Jack sleep in the dark.

When the time came to wake him, Daniel came in from walking his perimeter the final time and knelt by the side of the bed. He was nose to nose with Jack. He reached out and touched his cheek gently. Traced the line of Jack's cheek to his hair to his jaw. Jack's eyes flickered open, pools of black in the darkness.

"It was more than that, wasn't it," Daniel stated, more than asked. He let his thumb trace over dry chapped lips.

"You've got it wrong, Daniel," Jack whispered in reply. "We're just friends. Old, close friends."

But Daniel was sure that Jack wanted the touches as much as Daniel wanted to touch him.

"I don't think that's true," Daniel replied. "Do I know you well enough to tell that? To see through a lie?" He let his fingers trace back the way they had come, over the lines of jaw and cheekbones, over the curve of his eyebrow.

"Maybe," Jack agreed.

Daniel leaned forward and kissed him. Gentle. Soft. Moist against dry. Cool against warm.

"Stop this, Daniel," Jack murmured against Daniel's lips. It didn't sound particularly convincing, but then Jack was sitting up, climbing over the end of the bed, leaving Daniel kneeling, resting his head on the mattress, smiling to himself.

Jack put on his shoes and coat and went out to walk. Daniel climbed into the warm bed where Jack had been sleeping.

Sam giggled.

For some reason that made Daniel even happier. He snuggled into the heat Jack had left behind and fell asleep more easily than he had in months.

* * *

December 14

Daniel woke up in a strange room and tried to get his bearings. _Hotel_ , he remembered. But why was he in a hotel? He remembered leaving his apartment in a hurry and driving around finishing his grading in the back of a van...

His heart started skipping beats. Oh, God, he couldn't believe it. They had come back for him. Agent Morrison and the others had said they might come back for him, and they had. He peered through slitted eyes into the darkness. One person was sleeping in the other bed. A second person was sitting in the chair. Daniel knew by listening to his breathing and slight movements that the man wasn't asleep.

"Daniel, are you awake?" the man asked. He had barely whispered the question. Daniel muttered as if in his sleep and turned over to face the other direction.

It was unlikely that he could get out the front door, but he noted that he wasn't bound in any way. Maybe that meant that they trusted him enough that he could get up and go to the bathroom on his own. If there was a window in the bathroom, maybe he could get out that way.

There were odd gaps in his memory. He couldn't really piece together what had happened yesterday. He couldn't remember how he had ended up in the van with them, or exactly how they had gotten here. Maybe they had drugged him, and that was why he hadn't been restrained.

Well, only one way to find out. He seemed to be sleeping in his clothes; all he needed was shoes. He sat up with a grumble, and put his feet right where he expected his shoes to be. He felt them with his toes. He slipped his feet into them and shuffled off to the bathroom, as if half-asleep. The man in the chair didn't even move. Not a very good guard, Daniel thought. His attention seemed focused on the door and the window.

"Daniel," he whispered. Daniel grunted in reply. "I'm going out for a little walk. I'll be back in ten."

OK, that was a surprise. Daniel just grunted again and closed the bathroom door behind him. He heard the door to the room open and shut. Apparently the man was gone.

What had happened yesterday?! Had Daniel convinced them that he was traveling with them willingly? Well, it didn't matter. There was no way out through the bathroom, but now he could just walk out the front door. He quickly tied his shoes, went back out into the main room, grabbed his coat from the top of his duffel, counted to 30 just to give the man time to walk a little farther, and slipped out the front door into the night.

He didn't have to go far. It was winter and he was on foot and all he really needed was a phone and witnesses. He headed for the truck stop by the hotel.

* * *

"Dr. Jackson! We've been very worried. Are you all right?"

"I'm not sure. There's definitely something wrong with me. Maybe I've been drugged? Anyway, I think I was kidnapped from my apartment yesterday. I'm at a diner on..."

"We've already got the number and address off caller ID," Agent Morrison replied quickly. "We can have people there within the hour. Are you-"

A long arm reached around his shoulder and broke the connection.

"Whatcha doin', Daniel?"

Daniel flinched and hung up the phone. The man from the room.

He rounded on him. "Back off," Daniel said loudly, drawing a curious look from the waitress reading a magazine behind the counter.

"Come on, Daniel," the man replied quietly, stepping away and giving Daniel more space. "I thought we worked this all out yesterday. Did you just call the NID on us?"

"Yes," Daniel said shakily, even though he had no idea who "the NID" were. If the man was scared of them, so much the better. "They're on their way." He resisted glancing at the clock over the counter. Better to look confident, like they'd be here in minutes and not an hour from now.

The man swore under his breath. His patient confusion was quickly moving to anger. "Dammit, Daniel, you know who we are! We went through this yesterday! You were perfectly fine with me when you went to bed last night." Daniel felt like there was a meaning to that last statement that he was missing, but he ignored it.

"Fuck you," Daniel hissed, "Whatever you did to me yesterday worked great. What did you drug me with?"

He went and sat at the counter, in plain sight of the door and windows and closer to the waitress. She sauntered over and handed him a menu, then another to the man, who sat next to him. The man ordered coffee for both of them. The waitress set it in front of them and went back to her magazine.

"We didn't give you anything! And you certainly remembered enough last night. You scribbled in your notebook for an hour before you shut off the light and let me sleep."

Daniel thought about that. The man was right. Daniel _did_ remember sitting awake in the dark, writing for a long time in his journal by the light of his penlight, with his sidearm on the table next to him, keeping watch in the night. He had drawn the first watch...

He turned to the man next to him in shock.

"What's happening to me? You're right. I remember last night. I remember I was on watch, then I went to bed. Why was I doing that?"

The man was eyeing the clock and the door anxiously.

"How long did they say it would take them to get here?" the man asked.

Daniel suddenly felt unreasonably guilty.

"Within the hour," he admitted.

"That's ten minutes gone already." The man paused in thought. "Daniel, we aren't kidnapping you. I don't know what NID did to your head, but yesterday we showed you proof that we are your friends and you believed us. You came with us on this little road trip of your own free will. If you will trust me, come with us a little farther. Look over your journal from yesterday. Look at the pictures. If you aren't convinced, we'll let you out at the next good spot and you can call NID to come pick you up."

The man's eyes were dark and tired. Worried. Daniel felt like an idiot. Because for some reason, Daniel _did_ trust him. In fact, Daniel wanted to tell this stranger that everything was going to be alright. Of course Daniel would come with him. Daniel wanted him to lay his head in Daniel's lap so Daniel could rub his scalp and tug at his hair, and smooth the worried lines from around his eyes...

Daniel blinked at this surprising thought. Some of his daydream must have shown on his face. The man was looking at him hard. Then, he swore again, got up, and headed toward the door. There was a van parked with the motor running just outside, a blonde woman at the wheel.

"We're all checked out, sir," she announced as the man opened the door. "What's going on?"

"I think we've got a bigger problem on our hands than we initially thought," said the man, who turned to see if Daniel was following him. Wondering if he was losing his mind, Daniel opened the sliding door, took a deep breath, and climbed in.

* * *

Daniel read it all. Right down to the line, written in a language that he knew was Ancient, where he had mused to himself, _I wonder what he would do if I kissed him?_ In the dim light in the back of the van he looked at the pictures that his journal told him he had looked at yesterday. He had also gone back several days in his notes, trying to find out if this memory problem affected other things in his life. All he had found was the encounter two days ago with a blonde woman on the quad who seemed to know him, though he couldn't place her. She had talked about "the Colonel," whom he assumed must be this Jack person, now sitting in the captain's chair by the sliding door.

"This is insane," he said. "I know this is my journal. I remember writing this. But I'm reading these words that I wrote yesterday and I can't remember any of it. You think this 'NID' did this to me because of some project I was working on?"

"You were working on a translation," Sam said. "You thought it was a code."

"It was one of the things you were working on when you disappeared," Jack continued. "They tried to clear out all your current notes, but they couldn't take everything."

Jack went to the back of the van and reached over the seat into the storage crates in the back. He pulled out more spiral binders, similar to Daniel's journal.

"These were in the bottom drawer of your desk."

Daniel opened them curiously. He certainly didn't remember them, either, but they were clearly his. He must have wanted the contents to remain private, because he had used his own strategy for disguising the content. A sentence per language, approximately 26 languages and counting, including three that were only spoken by seven other people on the planet. Not a code, _per se_ , but it would be a mess to decipher. Definitely his.

"I like where you write in cuneiform, French, hieroglyphs, and Chinese, all in the same paragraph," Jack said with a grin.

Daniel smiled back absently, already absorbed in his notes. They were his observations about a dig site – PX3-982. Apparently the work had been rushed, due to the site being in enemy-held territory and likely to come under fire, but he had been very pleased with some of the artifacts he had found, including one that reminded him of something Nick had found years ago in Belize…

"So what do you think? Were you close to an answer?" Jack asked.

Daniel looked up. "No, I don't think so. For some reason I was very happy that this artifact was connected back to something Nick found, but I can't imagine why that would be important to a military operation…"

"Daniel," Jack said in exasperation. "Can we focus here?"

"Sorry," Daniel replied, though he was mostly annoyed to be interrupted. He began paging through the notes, not letting his eyes hang on the more interesting passages, looking for references to translations, trying to find one about a code.

"Not in this notebook. Where are the rest?"

* * *

Daniel spent all day in the back of the van, first reading his notes on his earlier work on the code, then puzzling over the printout of the original document. It was about forty single-spaced pages. He agreed with his notes. It was definitely a code and the underlying language was almost certainly goa'uld. Of course, he couldn't imagine why anyone writing in goa'uld would bother to encode their text, as it wasn't a language spoken on this planet as far as he could tell.

That was beginning to really bother him, actually. He had discovered today that he spoke not one, but two languages that he had never heard of before. And that he did some kind of fast and dirty archaeology with military applications in a field unit that regularly came under enemy fire.

"What the hell is it that we do, anyway?" he said aloud, tossing the notebook aside to take off his glasses and rub his eyes. He was getting too old to try to do serious work on three hours of sleep in a night.

Sam was asleep in the seat behind him. Jack looked up at him in the rearview mirror.

"If I told you the truth right now, you would never believe me."

"Come on, Jack. What does an archaeologist and linguist do for the US military?"

Jack was quiet so long that Daniel thought he wasn't going to answer him. Fine. Daniel began sifting back though his notebooks to get to that first one. He could read his own notes.

"The planet Earth is being threatened by aliens," Jack said, breaking the long silence. Daniel blinked at this strange announcement. "We have discovered very powerful alien technologies on Earth, but nothing that we can use to defend ourselves. You were one of the people who figured out how to use the most important alien artifact we have found to date, and you continue to assist the Air Force in its attempts to explore previously undiscovered archaeological sites for defensive or offensive weapons to use in our conflict with the goa'uld."

Daniel stared at Jack in the rearview mirror. Jack was watching the road. He looked serious, but calm. Not at all what Daniel would have expected a raving lunatic to look like.

"That sounds completely insane. You realize that?"

"Look at your own notes, Daniel. You'll see everything you need to see to prove that what I'm saying is true, and that I haven't even told you the most outrageous part."

"What could possibly be more outrageous than the Air Force using archaeologists to find weapons to fight aliens?"

"Well..." Jack paused. His eyes flicked up to meet Daniel's in the rearview mirror. Daniel thought he looked like he was about to laugh. It looked good on Jack. Happiness. Humor. Daniel had a sudden overwhelming desire to taste the corners of those twinkling eyes.

Daniel took that as final evidence that he must be completely losing his mind.

"No. Don't tell me," Daniel said. "I think I'm too tired for any more revelations like that right now. If you try to tell me anything crazier than that I will probably just think I'm hallucinating."

"You should sleep, Daniel," came Sam's surprisingly alert voice from behind him.

"I can't fall asleep in here. If I wake up in the same state I was this morning, you'll never convince me I'm not being kidnapped and taken back to Peru."

"He's got a point, Carter. I just passed a sign for a Comfort Inn. Why don't we stop early. We could all use a little extra sleep after last night."

* * *

Carter had gone for Chinese at the place across the street. Daniel was writing in his journal. Jack lay on the other bed, dozing to the little sounds Daniel made, flipping pages of his various journals and writing down his thoughts about the day.

"If we go on like this much longer, I'm going to have to do the Cliff's Note version," Daniel said softly.

"Mmmm," Jack hummed non-committally, half asleep.

"I kissed you last night, didn't I?" Daniel asked, just as quietly.

Well, that was an interesting way to wake up. "Hmmmm?" Jack replied, trying to sound like he wasn't even listening.

"Quit pretending to be asleep, or I'll do it again," Daniel threatened. He sounded like he was tempted to laugh.

Jack sighed and sat up, rubbing his eyes.

"Daniel, we're not having this conversation."

"Why not? You said we were just old friends. That I was feeling the connection of how long we had worked together, all the sacrifices we had made for each other. But I know that's not what I'm feeling now. There was more. Or something different. I don't understand why you won't tell me what."

"No, Daniel. There wasn't any more. And that's why we're not having this conversation. Because we've never had this conversation. Not ever, in the whole time we've known each other. You've never tried to kiss me. You've never expressed the slightest interest any guy, as far as I know. If you feel like you do, and we never had this conversation, that means _you_ thought this conversation was a bad idea. And once we unscramble your brain, you'll remember why you didn't want to talk about this with me. So we're not doing this."

Jack watched Daniel as he made his little speech. He was sure he was right about this. He could see Daniel listening. Thinking. And he saw the moment when Daniel decided Jack was wrong and Daniel was right. Jack groaned inwardly and waited.

"That's a lot about me, and nothing about you," Daniel replied. "This is the only me I have right now. Maybe the only me that will ever be. And I know there were times today when I wanted to touch you so badly I felt like it was turning me inside out. If that's the person you have now, what do you want?"

"It doesn't matter, Daniel. If we can't fix your memory – if the "you" you are now is the only "you" that will ever be - you'll be going back to your new professorship. You can't wake up every morning and read your notes from the day before. What would you write? 'I know you don't remember that you're gay. But that guy sleeping with you is Jack and he's your lover.' It's ridiculous to even think about."

"And you think that if we _can_ fix my memory, you're right back where you started from? I'll remember whatever it was that stopped me from acting on these feelings, and we'll go back to being friends?"

"Exactly," Jack said, relieved that Daniel understood.

So why was Daniel looking at him like that? Why was Daniel suddenly standing over him?

"Daniel?" Jack had meant it to sound admonishing, but it came out as a confused question.

"You still are saying a whole lot about me, and nothing about you." Daniel was looking at him thoughtfully. Jack swallowed hard.

"Maybe what I should do is take advantage of the freedom I have now to try for something I clearly want, but am too much of a coward to pursue?" His voice was a low growl, unlike any voice Jack had ever heard from Daniel before. Jack knew he should move, protest in some way when Daniel climbed onto the bed with him and straddled his lap.

"Tell me that you don't want me, and I'll believe you," Daniel whispered, reaching out to cradle Jack's face with both hands. "I'll even write myself a little note about it. 'You're totally hot for Jack, but he's just a friend. Don't come on to him and make him turn you down again. He hates it.'"

Jack was sure that he should say something, but he couldn't figure out what he was asking. He was hypnotized by the movement of Daniel's lips, the flow of his voice, completely lost in the heat of the touch of their thighs together. He was alarmed at the blood moving to places where it shouldn't, but then Daniel was kissing him, holding him still, pinning him to the headboard of the bed, and he really couldn't remember the argument anymore. He was tired and Daniel wanted to kiss him, and what was wrong with that, exactly? He groaned and Daniel laughed, and Jack let his arms wrap around the warm body above him.

After what seemed like forever, he became aware that someone was knocking on the door of the room.

"Guys! Food! Can somebody let me in?"

Jack began to shift away to go to the door, but Daniel didn't let him. And if Daniel didn't want him to get up, Jack wasn't going anywhere. He was happy to let Daniel think for both of them.

"Sir? Everything OK?"

"Sorry, Sam! Hang on!" Daniel shouted back to her, jarring Jack out of his daydreamy state. How could Daniel sound so completely normal? Daniel slid away from him, out of his arms, and was suddenly back on the other bed where he had started, surrounded by his notebooks, scribbling away in his journal, oblivious and lost in his work, just as Daniel should be.

Leaving Jack to deal with Carter alone. Bastard.

He got shakily to his feet, shifting to rearrange himself before he frightened Carter by looking deranged and sex-crazed.

"Kinda cold out here, guys," Carter said, sounding distinctly annoyed.

Jack yanked the door open.

"Keep your pants on," he said crankily.

OK. Possibly not the best thing to say. She took him in with one sweeping glance, and her grin said she knew _exactly_ what the delay had been.

"What are you smiling about, Major?" he growled. He saw her repress laughter.

"Nothing, sir," she replied.

"You know, out of respect you could try to make that sound a little more convincing. I am your CO, you know," he took the bags from her and thumped them on the small table in the corner of the room.

"Colonel, _retired_ , sir," she reminded him.

* * *

Despite the fact that he was exhausted, Daniel couldn't fall asleep. They had made arrangements for the morning, one of which involved Daniel's arm being lashed to the headboard with one of those plastic self-locking restraints like riot police used in mass crowd arrests. Sam had suggested that he would sleep better with the restraint around both ankles, but Daniel had pointed out that he needed to see his note to himself immediately, and the best way to insure that was for his attention to be drawn to the restraint on his arm. Sam's pocket knife was under the note. The plan was that he would see the note, find the knife, free himself and follow his own instructions to read his notes to himself before he panicked. It seemed like a good plan. Except that it was impossible to fall asleep like that, one arm awkwardly extended above his head.

The other two lingered over the remains of the Chinese food, talking softly. His back was to them.

As he settled down and willed himself to be still and fall asleep, they must have thought that he had.

"I think we should split up tomorrow," Sam said. "The two of you can keep heading north, and I'll go back west to the mountain. We need to let the general know what is going on."

"There's no way to know that he's not being monitored," Jack replied.

"I was thinking that I could buy a couple of those disposable cell phones. I could drop one off on Walter's porch with instructions and have the general call the other one from an off-base location. I think that would probably be enough to avoid the NID."

"Hmmm," Jack sounded like he was considering the idea. "Maybe he could get T back for us? It would be nice to have a reliable third."

"And he could see what he could learn from his contacts about what the NID might have done to Daniel," Sam sounded tired.

"Sounds like a plan," said Jack. "But I think I should head back to the mountain and you should stick with Daniel."

Sam laughed quietly.

"Scared of him, sir?"

"You wipe that smug little grin off your face, Major, or I'll bust you back down to non-com so fast it makes your head spin."

Sam snorted. " _Retired_ , sir. Plus, the general would never let you."

"It's not funny, Carter," he insisted.

"Well, I don't think the fact that you're scared to be alone with Daniel should change our basic strategy. Daniel's the NID's target, not us. I'm not trained for this kind of mission, sir. Defending a civilian target in a civilian setting from another black ops group… Not really my thing."

"I have every faith in you, Carter," Jack replied. Sam snorted.

"So I think we should all sleep til checkout time tomorrow. Maybe Daniel can take a morning watch after he wakes up, then we'll go our separate ways," Sam said.

"And you'll collect T, and rendezvous with us at Mark's cabin?"

"As soon as I possibly can," Sam said reassuringly.

"I can almost guarantee it won't be too soon," Jack replied grimly.

* * *

December 15

Daniel groggily resurfaced from sleep in the dim light of a tiny bedside lamp. His shoulder and arm and wrist all hurt.

He snapped awake. He remembered traveling – hotels – being tied to the bed. His attention turned to his bound wrist. He immediately began searching for a way to get free.

He realized his stupidity when a soft voice said, "You left yourself a note."

* * *

Under the note were a knife and a handgun. The woman in the chair at the foot of the beds watched him calmly as he cut himself loose and checked the weapon.

"I'm going to take a walk," she murmured, apparently trying not to wake the person in the next bed. "Back in ten."

Then she was gone and it was just him, the sleeping man, his journal, and his note to himself.

 _There's something wrong with your short-term memory. You trust these people. Read your journal starting with December 14 before you do anything else._


* * *

 _He told me we shouldn't because he knew it was something that the "real" me wouldn't want. He said we shouldn't because I wouldn't recognize him in the morning. He never said we shouldn't because he didn't want me. I asked him what he wanted and he said it didn't matter._

 _When I kissed him, it took him about three seconds to give in. Then he put his hands on me. His tongue in my mouth. Amazing. Unlike anything I can ever remember doing. When I licked the skin on his throat he made the most incredible noises._




Daniel shoved the notebook away and shut his eyes tightly. His face felt hot with humiliation, but his fingers tingled and his toes curled, as if his body still had the sensory memory of the kisses and touches he had so palely described to himself on the lined pages.

He struggled for some way to deny that the journal had anything to do with him. Some other person had written the entry in 26 different languages. He didn't kiss men he'd known for just a day. Hell, he didn't kiss women he'd known for just one day. What was wrong with him?!

He stole a sidelong glance at the person sleeping in the bed next to him, both relieved that the man was still asleep, and frustrated that all that could be seen of him was a few tufts of hair poking out from the top of the comforter. He went back though the pages, carefully _not_ reading them again, looking for the photographs. The happy, dirty one. There he was, laughingly clinging to a tall, smiling man on one side, the attractive blond woman who had gone for a walk on the other, with a massive third man just beyond her, his arm overlapping Daniel's across her slender shoulders. On the back he had written Jack Daniel Sam Teal'c.

He stared at Jack's face. The smile, the laugh lines, the warm brown eyes.

He shut his eyes again tight. The little thud-flip his heard did looking at that photo was more persuasive than his own handwriting in the journal.

* * *

Sam stood in an out of the way spot down the balcony from their room, watching the parking lot and keeping an eye out for Daniel. She had wanted to give him some privacy - show him she trusted him. She hoped they had thought this through enough last night that he wouldn't run again.

She felt a wave of disappointment as she saw the door open and Daniel stepping out into the cold, crisp night air. But he wasn't running. He looked around, spotted her, and walked over, looking confused and nervous. Behind him, the door he had closed open soundlessly. She saw Jack look out, assess the situation, and just as silently retreat back into the room and shut the door again.

Daniel leaned against the railing next to her.

"That was an interesting read," he muttered, mindful of possibly sleeping neighbors.

"I can imagine," she replied.

"We were... are... friends? All of us?" He was holding the picture from Jack's cookout, not looking at it at the moment, just holding it like a precious thing.

"Yep," she replied, turning so that her hip rested against the rail and she could see him as he spoke.

He smiled that nervous smile she remembered from their early acquaintance.

"Considering the fact that apparently some covert government agency has damaged my brain so that I won't help a super-secret national space travel and research program to translate a mysterious encoded document..." he trailed off, taking a deep breath.

"You feel like a complete idiot, because all you want to talk about is Colonel O'Neill?" she prompted, with a sly smile

He snorted at her comment, but apparently couldn't stop his answering bashful grin.

"You're laughing at me, aren't you?" he asked.

"No!" she denied it even as the laugh escaped. Daniel blushed furiously.

"Great. Never mind..." he muttered, nervous smile flickering again, and he turned away.

"Daniel!" she said, a little louder than she had intended, catching his arm and stopping his retreat.

"Honestly. I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing at him." She managed to suppress her chuckles, even as Daniel gave her a more genuine smile. She almost laughed again, seeing that the noise they were making had drawn Jack to the window. He was now watching them through a slight parting in the curtains.

"Does he deserve it?" Daniel asked.

"Probably not," Sam conceded. "But I refuse to feel guilty when he's got the man of his dreams crawling all over him."

"So I did... do... I have some sort of... _personal_ relationship with him?" Daniel asked.

Though she had been anticipating the question, she found that she didn't know exactly how she should answer.

"What makes you ask?" she replied.

Daniel laughed shortly.

"You're the one who said I was crawling all over him. But mainly because my journal entries describe me doing things that don't make any sense to me," he replied. "Maybe in those four years I can't remember I have become the kind of person who would climb into a handsome stranger's lap. But somehow I'm thinking not." That twitch of a smile again. Daniel wouldn't meet her eyes.

"Did you ask the colonel?" she asked gently.

"I want to know what you think," Daniel countered.

"Alright," she agreed. "No, I don't think the two of you had quite fumbled your way to a _personal_ relationship." She couldn't help laughing again, watching the window, willing herself to make direct eye contact with her hidden CO, as Daniel flushed and looked away.

"Great," he muttered.

"That said..." she continued. "You flirt. You fight. The colonel gets bored, he ends up in your office. You're doing a multi-team briefing, you get nervous, your eyes go to him. The colonel has been known to change whole battle plans in the field because you asked him to. You have him completely wrapped around your littlest finger."

She laughed quietly.

"Or at least, that's what nearly every person on the base, possibly including General Hammond, just assumes." She chuckled to herself.

He was blushing again.

"That's insane."

She snorted.

"I'm not sure which part you think is insane, but you guys will work it out."

* * *

Breakfast was excruciating. Daniel had refused to go back to sleep, only to have to go through the trauma of waking up twice in one day. He'd just have to write down everything that Sam had explained to him before he could go to sleep, anyway, and by then, it would be time to get up again. So they decided to get started moving early and checked out of the hotel as soon as they could get packed.

They ate at the diner next door. They took a booth away from the few other patrons and Sam and Jack talked quickly and quietly about plans for the next few days.

Then, with a last few reassuring words, and quick hugs, Sam left.

Daniel realized miserably that he would be spending the next three days, maybe longer, all alone with Jack.

* * *

They ate quietly. Or rather Jack ate. Daniel pushed his food around while his stomach tried to reject what it had already eaten.

"I've been thinking about what to do now that Carter's gone," Jack said through the last bite of his pancakes. "I don't think we should sleep together."

Daniel set his coffee cup down very carefully. Well, considering how he must have been behaving the night before, he could hardly blame Jack for being blunt.

"Okay," he said meekly, pushing the cold eggs on his plate around some more.

"But you can't sleep in the car," Jack continued. "Every time a bump wakes you up, we might have to go through the whole no-you're-not-being-kidnapped thing all over again. So I'm thinking you should do the driving today, I'll sleep, then I can take the watch after we get there tonight."

Daniel looked up at him stupidly. Jack sighed. "The NID?" he said. "I don't like the idea of them catching us sleeping." Daniel nodded and Jack continued.

"We could split the night watch, but it's so much more efficient if you only have to wake up once a day."

"Right," Daniel said, suddenly feeling a wave of anger that he couldn't wake up next to Jack in the sunlight in the afterglow of a long night of lovemaking.

"Shit!" He breathed, blushing furiously in the heat the image created.

Jack gave him an odd look over the top of his coffee cup.

"What?"

Daniel just shook his head and shrugged.

"Okay," said Jack, stretching out the vowels and watching him carefully. "Here. Pay the check," he said, dropping cash on the table. "I'm gonna hit the head, then we can get on the road."

He nodded, and stared down at his uneaten breakfast again, refusing to let himself watch Jack walk away, in his old, worn, well-fitting...

He swore to himself again as he waved to the waitress.

He was going to end up in Jack's lap all over again before the day was over, if he didn't get a grip on himself. Sam had been clear. He and Jack weren't lovers. Which meant Jack was right. Considering the force of what Daniel felt, he must have been resisting these feelings for years. There must have been a good reason. He swallowed the last of his coffee and resolved to try to be true to the greater wisdom of his missing self.

* * *

It was going to be a grueling drive. Kansas to Montana in one long shot. Jack gave him directions before stretching out on the floor of the van under the seats and going to sleep. Jack and Sam had agreed that they had given the NID the slip. There had been no sign that they had been followed yesterday and the night had been quiet. Now he wanted to go to ground as fast as possible and sit tight somewhere safe so that Daniel could concentrate on the code.

The question was where to do that, and Sam had come up with the answer. She knew a real estate agent up in Montana, in Billings, who managed vacation properties. They could get a cabin, hide out in the woods. So that became their destination.

* * *

Jack climbed back into the van with a key and some paperwork.

"I called in takeout Chinese at a place she recommended," Jack said. "Let's grab that and find this place before it gets dark."

"Jack, I think I've done it," Daniel replied, voice tight with excitement.

"Done what?" Jack asked, climbing over to take the driver's seat when it was clear that Daniel was engrossed in his computer and not paying him the slightest bit of attention.

"That paper I was hoping to send to _Linguistics Today_ , what do you think?" Daniel replied. Jack eyed him in the rearview mirror. "Well, actually, that too, But the code, Jack. I think I've cracked it."

"What, in the half hour I spent in there getting the place?!" Jack asked in amazement.

"Well, no, I've been working on it for a couple of days now, plus, I need to try out a few ideas to see if I've really done it, but somewhere in the middle of Wyoming, it just hit me, how the code symbols must fit to the Goa'uld underneath. Definitely."

Jack watched him shove his glasses up his nose and lean in closer to the hard copy of the text, then turn his attention back to the computer screen, typing furiously, murmuring to himself. Jack shook his head and pulled out of the space to get their dinner.

* * *

Daniel wondered for the tenth time that day if he had just abducted himself. He hardly even remembered the trip up the hill. He had been engrossed in testing his theory about the pattern of symbols. Jack had driven down the street, and stopped for their dinner, as well as picking up a few other items in the strip mall, Daniel was fairly certain.

Now, he was standing in the woods at the end of a barely passable dirt road in the middle of Nowhere, Montana, with some guy he didn't know, but who certainly seemed to have a lot of interest in him. Nobody knew where he was. And now nobody would ever find him.

He was even planning to let himself be tied to the bed for the night. He shivered and tried to pretend that it was apprehension at the realization of the stupidity of his situation. Not anticipation of Jack's strong, warm hands binding him.

 _Stupid, stupid, stupid,_ he told himself, as he trailed after Jack into the tiny cabin.

It had three rooms. A large front room, with a huge fireplace that seemed to take the entire end wall. There was a kitchenette with a rough table and benches, a cozy area to sit with couches and arm chairs. Through one door was a room almost completely filled by a massive bed and through the other, a tiny bathroom with a shower.

Clearly a warm place to crash and eat after a day spent outside. Perfect for newlyweds, Daniel thought. It was going to be tight with four of them. He couldn't imagine how they were going to pass weeks and weeks there.

He shook his head, trying to push away the slightly panicked feeling of knowing he was alone here with a stranger, as Jack dumped the food and other bags on the table and began looking the place over carefully. Daniel found an outlet near one of the armchairs for the laptop, then went back to the van for more of their stuff. He always preferred paper and pen while translating. A computer keyboard didn't let him get close enough to the text.

When he came back inside, Jack was putting the cooled food into the microwave for a quick warming. The table was set, Daniel noticed, and couldn't quite put his finger on why that seemed odd.

"This looks like the honeymoon cabin," Daniel commented, breaking the long silence between them. "The agent didn't think it was unusual that you wanted this place?"

"I told her there were four of us, but this was all she had for a long term rental," Jack replied. "The sofa apparently converts to a very comfortable sleeper."

Jack shrugged.

"Trust me, this is only gonna feel weird to you. This is luxury living compared to some of the places SG-1's been stuck together. But if you've really cracked this thing, we might not be here that long after all."

* * *

With a belly full of dinner, Daniel knew he should be ready to sleep. After the day's long drive, his early waking this morning seemed like days ago. But the urge to work on the code was an overwhelming need. He set his dishes in the kitchenette sink and resettled at the table with a legal pad and the printout.

"Don’t start with that," Jack said quietly.

Daniel looked up at him, a little startled at the interruption. Dinner had been quiet. Daniel had been lost in thought, having deliberately set aside his qualms about the situation and turned his attention back to the day's discovery. He hadn't even been paying attention to what Jack had been doing.

"I thought you wanted this thing cracked and translated pronto?" Daniel replied.

Jack nodded, but shrugged.

"It's been a long day. I know what you're like when you get started on these things. You'll work until you collapse face-down on the table in a puddle of your own drool. Before you start down that path, maybe you should write in your journal first. For the morning."

The comment jerked Daniel right out of translation mode, refreshing the feeing of humiliation and stupidity from his conversation with Sam that morning.

"Um. Yeah. About that…"

But Jack was standing up, somewhat abruptly.

"I'm going to get the lay of the land before it gets completely dark out there. Try not to do the drool puddle thing before I get back."

Then he was gone with a blast of frosty night air.

Daniel hardly knew what to write in his journal. He summarized his conversation with Sam. Made a few comments about the drive. Outlined his thoughts about how the code was structured and how it would related to the underlying Goa'uld text.

He refused to look back over his own comments about Jack. He couldn't even remember what had happened. Why should he have such a deep feeling of shame – that he had done something irretrievably stupid? He felt the repercussions deeply.

But all he had to do was destroy those journal pages he would never have to feel this again.

He contemplated it for a moment – just ripping them out and replacing them with a stern warning not to let his feelings for Jack run away with him. Before he could reconsider, that was exactly what he did. Tore out the pages and let them fall into the trash can on top of the bag of spent carryout food cartons. He ripped out his first few pages about what Sam had said, too, and wrote a new paragraph, keeping what he needed to remember and leaving out the gory details.

 _I seem to be surprisingly attracted to Col. O'Neill. So much so that I decided to ask Maj. Carter if - before my memory was tampered with – if Col. O'Neill and I had any kind of personal relationship. Sam said no. I have torn out a few pages, the content of which was too horribly humiliating to have to reread day after day. The essence of which was that the Col. is not interested even if I might be. My advice to myself during this time when I can't remember Col. O'Neill from day to day, is that I should keep my hands to myself and stop embarrassing us both._


* * *

Jack returned from his walk to find Daniel buried in the translation. He smiled at the curved back and bent neck. Everything just as it should be. Sort of. He went and rummaged though his afternoon's bag of purchases and found the new _Field and Stream_ and settled down on the long soft couch, where he could keep an eye on Daniel while he read.

But he wasn't able to focus on the glossy pages, distracted by Daniel's little mutterings and shiftings. Not to mention that he was on edge knowing that their only real protection here was secrecy. He was jumpy, normal night noises from the nearby woods startling him. He felt he should be out there, walking a perimeter and watching for the enemy, but that would mean leaving Daniel alone inside the cabin. If the enemy's goal was to steal Daniel back, as soon as Jack left the cabin, the whole thing might be over.

In the face of this complete lack of options, Jack forced himself to accept that the NID didn't know where they were or how to find them. Teal'c and Carter would be here in a couple of days, and they could run this thing a little more professionally. Until then... well, if the secrecy thing didn't hold out, there wasn't much more Jack could do about it anyway.

He was just getting into an article about a nearby wildlife area when Daniel suddenly shoved back from the table and flung down his pencil, swearing. Daniel turned on him and pointed accusingly.

"This is a CIA white paper!" he shouted.

Jack blinked at him stupidly.

"It's confidential intelligence! You... you..." Daniel as stammering in anger and shock.

"Really?" Jack asked thoughtfully, sitting up and walking over to the table to look down at the pages, now covered with Daniel's notes and comments in the margins and between the lines. "That's what I thought."

"So this is about some kind of espionage, after all?!" Daniel shouted. "You've got top secret government documents and you've tricked me into helping you get information you want. I'm not doing any more than I've already –"

Jack turned around, taking in Daniel's fury with some surprise.

"I thought we made it very clear what you were doing," Jack replied. "We told you your lab had been raided by the NID to prevent you from finishing this project."

"So?!"

Jack rubbed his eyes wearily.

"Daniel. Did you not understand that the NID _is_ the United States government?"

Daniel just scowled at him.

"Look. I need to know what that thing says."

Daniel scowled harder.

Jack sighed and turned to look over the work Daniel had already done. Daniel took a step forward as if he would try to stop him. But only one step. Jack could tell he didn't know what to do.

Looking over Daniel's rough notes was nothing like looking at a finished translation. But taking in the whole, Jack got the idea.

"This is a plan for infiltration and an attack from within."

He turned his gaze back to Daniel, who was now slumped in place, hugging himself, watching Jack cautiously.

He didn't answer him.

"Daniel, this is a white paper, generated by the CIA, to help some snakehead take over the US government. A goa'uld asked for this report and somebody used CIA resources to put it together. You have to see you need to translate this. We have to know what we're dealing with here."

"Who's 'we,' Jack?" Daniel asked, hugging himself tighter. "All I have is you to tell me what this means and who the enemy is. How am I supposed to know that _you_ , or for that matter, even you and _I_ , aren't the enemy?"

Jack took in the stubborn set of Daniel's mouth. The determination in his eyes. He scrubbed his hand over his face again and sighed.

"Fine," he said. Daniel looked surprised.

"Here's what I suggest. Hopefully, Carter and Teal'c will be here in a couple of days. We'll figure out a way to get you inside the mountain so that you can meet with the General and you can get everything sorted out so that you can finish the translation."

"So, you're not going to try to make me do this?"

Jack shrugged.

"There's no point. If you don't want to do it, you won't."

Daniel just stood there looking at him in confusion.

"Come on Daniel. You're tired. Let's set everything up for the morning so you can get some sleep."

Daniel smiled weakly.

"OK. Thanks, Jack."

Jack shrugged again.

"I'm just going to get a shower first."

Jack nodded and sat back down with his magazine.

He pretended to pay no attention as Daniel got ready for his shower. He was amused as Daniel retrieved sweatpants and t-shirt and modestly retreated into the tiny bathroom fully-clothed.

Once the water was safely running, Jack flipped through the pages of his magazine until the three pieces of notepaper slipped out. He ran his fingers over Daniel's quick, cramped handwriting. He could pick out the Latin, the French, a little of the Goa'uld. Enough to know what the pages were. He ran his tongue over his lips and put them back between the glossy pages.

A few minutes later Daniel reappeared from the bathroom in a puff of steam, hair damp and spikey, arms full of his other clothes. Jack stood up from the couch and collected Daniel's journal from the table, and another of his afternoon's purchases. He found Daniel standing in the bedroom, his dirty clothes piled on the top of the dresser, looking lost in thought.

"Come on," said Jack, "Let's get you tucked in."

"I can't help feeling like an idiot, agreeing to this," Daniel confided, as he turned back the covers and slipped under them. Jack could see just a hint of suppressed panic in Daniel's expression. He looked like a new green recruit, stepping though the gate for the first time, wondering if there would be a platoon of Jaffa waiting on the other side of the galaxy for them.

Jack smiled as disarmingly as he knew how.

"So which arm, then?"

"I suppose it should be on whichever side the journal is on," he said uncertainly.

Jack shuffled around the foot of the bed to the other side of the room, where there was a tiny bedside table. He put the journal there, with the weapon underneath, and the morning's note on top. Daniel watched him wide-eyed from under the covers.

"Couldn't we just lock the door tonight?" Daniel asked hopefully. "I'm not looking forward to waking up with another sore shoulder."

Jack grimaced sympathetically.

"It's the same argument as yesterday. We have to be sure no matter when you wake up, you find the journal before you can go anywhere. If you wake up in a panic sometime later tonight, you might just put on your clothes and make a break for it out the window without ever reading anything."

Daniel nodded and extended his left arm from under the safety of the comforter.

"I did, however, do some shopping this afternoon while you were busy deciphering. At least you might not have to wake up with a sore arm." He set the bag down on Daniel's chest. Daniel shoved up on his elbows and opened the bag. He made a slighted strangled sound as he saw the contents.

"Where did you buy these?" he asked, voice a little shaky. He pulled out the cuffs, which were joined by a long piece of chain, enough to let Daniel rest comfortably. Jack tried not to smile at the way Daniel first paled, then flushed as he examined them briefly.

"Guns and Ammo shop, two doors down from the place I picked up the Chinese food."

Daniel took a deep breath.

"You do have the key?"

"Two!" said Jack brightly, and he took one, waved it dramatically at Daniel, and laid it under the journal.

Daniel nodded and to Jack's surprise, instead of just locking himself into the cuffs, he handed them back to Jack. He swallowed hard as Jack took them, and relaxed back into the pillows, left hand resting by his head. With another deep breath, he shut his eyes and waited.

"Daniel, are you afraid of me?" Jack asked softly.

Daniel nodded, not opening his eyes to look at him.

Jack made a noncommittal noise and carefully took Daniel's proffered wrist and gently shut the first cuff around it. Jack felt the shiver that ran through Daniel's arm. He then quietly attached the cuff to a segment of the iron bedstead. Daniel blew out a breath.

"You know the key is right there," Jack said softly.

Daniel nodded.

"Then what are you afraid of?"

"Give me a break, Jack. All you have to do is take the key away, and that's it. Look where we are. Think how I left. If you took the key away, nobody would ever know I was here. This is beyond a leap of faith. This is like a free fall in the dark."

Daniel swallowed hard again. He still hadn't opened his eyes to look at Jack.

"Why did you tear out those pages from your journal?"

Daniel opened his eyes, startled. He moved to sit up. Jack stopped him with an open palm, pressed firmly to his chest.

"I didn't need them," Daniel replied, licking his lips nervously. "I made a few related notes. More to the point."

"What if I said I know what was on those pages?"

Daniel's eyes narrowed.

"You read Cuneiform and Mandarin Chinese and Arabic?" he asked defensively.

"No. And no. And some. I'm not very literate, but I do speak it relatively well. Also French. And I learned Latin from you. Sort of."

Daniel's momentary bristle vanished as quickly as it had come.

"Look," he said quietly, his eyes on the ceiling. "I probably owe you an apology."

"What did Carter say to you, anyway?"

"Carter?" Daniel replied, confused being interrupted mid-stride.

"She said something, didn't she? Warned you off."

"Um. Not exactly. She seemed surprisingly pleased, actually. But what she said made it clear to me that..." he paused a moment, eyes shutting and opening, tongue stealing out again to lick dry lips. "She, uh, made it clear that everything you said the other night must be true, and that I had probably made a complete and utter fool of myself, in addition to putting you in a very awkward and embarrassing position. So I really am sorry about the whole thing. As well as feeling completely and abjectly humiliated. I tore out the pages, quite frankly, because I didn't want to remember the exact details of what I did, if I didn't have to. It's a little cowardly, I guess, but I don't see that there's anything wrong with just letting the whole experience be summarized by my follow-up, replacement, you-acted-like-an-idiot-don't-do-it-again entry."

The words tumbled out and Jack just let them. When Daniel had finally talked himself through it, he met Jack's gaze again with a weak smile.

"What if I asked you to take those pages and put them back?" Jack said softly. "What if I said I really wished you wanted to remember, and that I'm really, _really_ sorry that what I said and what Carter said, and what I did made you feel so awful that you preferred to forget. Because I don't want to forget."

As he spoke he felt himself blushing, but he refused to look away from Daniel's face. He leaned down slowly, his hand still resting on Daniel's chest, but gently now, not holding him, just feeling his heart pounding through the layers of shirt and sheet and blanket and comforter. Or maybe that was his own pulse, racing as he did something so, so stupid he couldn't remember the last time he did something even remotely this idiotic, even under the influence of alcohol.

He kissed Daniel Jackson.

A feather light touch at first. Daniel actually twitched away, turning his head slightly to avoid Jack's lips. The kiss landed just wide of the mark, gentle on the corner of Daniel's mouth. His eyes still tracked Jack, even as he turned his head away, so he looked at Jack sidelong. Jack couldn't read Daniel's expression well, but he thought there was surprise and suspicion there, and a healthy dose of fear.

"Jack?" Daniel could barely whisper his name.

He pulled away long enough for Daniel to turn back to face him again, then Jack said, softly and gently and with what he hoped was a reassuring smile, "I'm going to try that one more time, okay?"

Then he did.

And this time Daniel didn't flinch.

It was different from the previous night. Daniel wasn't confident and predatory. Instead, he was hesitant and tentative. Jack could feel the tension in Daniel's body under his hand. He had to coax him carefully, persuade him with sweet gentle kisses and little begging laps of his tongue that everything was alright. That he could open his mouth and let Jack touch his tongue gently, then delve deeper to explore. Jack was good at this, believe it or not. Good at patient and careful and persuasive.

When it seemed that Daniel might have calmed down enough to allow it, Jack shifted and rearranged himself until he could lay down between Daniel and the edge of the bed. Never letting their lips come apart long enough for Daniel to protest. Laid his body along the long length of Daniel's, and settled in comfortably, fingers finding their way up from Daniel's chest, covered by bedclothes, to Daniel's exposed neck, the hinge of his jaw, the curve of his ear, the softness of his hair, still slightly damp from the shower.

It was Daniel's whimper, hardly audible, that brought Jack back to reality. He found that he was half sprawled onto Daniel, who was still safely hidden under the covers, except that Jack's thigh was now positioned strategically, and there was no missing the cause of the whimper. Jack pulled back to meet Daniel's eyes, and there was only one way to describe the expression there. Daniel was terrified.

"It's alright, Danny," he whispered, nudging Daniel's hip with his own erection, just in case the other man had somehow failed to notice.

"No, Jack," Daniel croaked. He cleared his throat and tried again. "It is _not_ alright." This time his voice was low and rough and sultry. He shut his eyes and shook his head and swallowed visibly. "I think we need to stop this right now before it gets completely out of hand."

Jack sighed and began to disentangle himself and sit up.

"Yeah, probably," he agreed, running a shaky hand through his hair.

He noticed that Daniel's restrained hand was clenched tightly around the chain. He flinched a little at the realization.

He stood abruptly and tucked the torn pages into the later part of Daniel's notebook, carefully not looking at any of the rest of the contents.

He walked to the door.

"Jack, I need a pen," Daniel said. His voice sounded as wobbly as Jack felt.

"No you don't," Jack said.

"If you want me to remember... anything..." he pressed, "you know I need to write."

"Let me remember this for both of us," Jack replied.

Daniel had a key to the cuffs, and he had pens in his bag at the foot of the bed.

"Good night, Daniel. I'll see you in the morning."

He switched off the light and walked out to sit on the couch and watch the dying fire.

He waited for Daniel to get his own pen. But the room stayed quiet.

* * *

Daniel lay there in the dark, his heart pounding and his whole body shaking. He was drenched in sweat and his cock was throbbing for release that he absolutely was not going to give himself.

He did not want to admit to himself, even indirectly, how much he liked being at Jack's mercy. He wanted to forget as quickly as possible the electric charge he had felt when Jack had locked the cuff around his wrist. He would definitely deny how devastatingly good it was to have Jack draped over him, pressing him down, holding him in place. He really didn’t think he was gay – they couldn't have made him forget something that fundamental to his very being, could they? – but it would have taken very little to have changed his plea for Jack to stop into pathetic begging for Jack to do more.

Jack had done this. Jack had even salvaged their earlier encounters from the trash – stuffed them back into Daniel's repertoire of Jack-memories even when Daniel had been ready to let the whole thing go. Suddenly it frightened Daniel to the core to think that the choice he made in the next few minuets would determine whether he kept this new frightening, disturbing, luscious set of erotic memories of Jack, or just let them wash away like a twisted wet dream that you only knew you must have dreamed because you woke up sticky and grumpy and had to change the sheets.

And what exactly did Jack mean when he said he would "remember" for both of them? Did that mean that he, himself, wanted to give the memory back to Daniel one day? Maybe Sam was right, and Jack really was in love with him. But maybe Jack only wanted as much as he could get without consequences. Maybe he would take what Daniel would give as long as he never had to face reality the next day.

But if that was the case, why didn't he just leave those pages in the trash?

Daniel was exhausted by the day. The adrenaline crash was sapping what last bit of energy he had left for thinking. It would be easy to just get a pen from his bag and make whatever comments he wanted to in his journal. But he was so confused, and Jack had asked him not to.

Daniel shut his eyes and began declining the noun "idiot" in Russian. He was asleep before he reached the genitive plural.

* * *

Daniel woke up in a soft, warm bed under a big fluffy comforter, practically drowning in pillows. Where the hell was he? Oh. Yeah. Cabin in the woods. He blinked blearily at the ceiling. He discovered the cuffs when he reached for his glasses. The whole experience was surreal, though now at least he remembered doing this for several days in a row. Waking up in a strange bed and not quite remembering exactly how it had happened. Except this time, he knew what to expect. There was something going on with his memory. He was going to open that journal on the bedside table and find out what it was that he kept forgetting. He found the keys to the cuffs folded inside his note to himself. He flipped the journal open and started reading.

* * *

Daniel sat cross-legged under the covers for a long time, absently running his fingers over the writing on the page. His past had been taken away. His mind wasn't his own anymore. Every day he would forget Jack and Sam and everything that had happened in his life that had anything to do with them. _Years_ of his life, stripped away. People. Events. Work. Research. _A wife_. It was unbelievable, but as the mornings like this came one after the other, it was impossible to deny. And if he believed Jack and Sam, it was some evil arm of the United States government that had done this to him. And now they wanted him back, to tuck him away in an insignificant little out of the way college town to live a quiet life, fearful of the history they created for him, an experiment for their observation.

Probably they would even alter his mind again, to remember this escape as another kidnapping.

He thought about the translation and it only bothered him a little. He was still not going to give a total stranger access to what was clearly classified information. But he trusted Jack now, and Jack wasn't going to try to force him to do it. As long as that was true, he was willing to wait and see what happened next. Maybe Jack and Sam and this General Hammond person would convince him that it was something he should do. If not, he wouldn't.

And then there was Jack.

What was he going to do about that? He stroked his fingers over the textured paper again, feeling the preserved movements of the pen.

 _Keep these._
  
In English. On the back of the outside folded page. Not his own handwriting. In his own handwriting he had said he was throwing those painful, embarrassing pages away. It was the last thing he had written last night.

It seemed someone else had given them back to him.

The only other someone here was Jack. Could Jack possibly have guessed the content of the pages?

Of course he could. He had been there for every event, and _he_ could remember them from day to day, even if Daniel couldn't. He must have retrieved the pages from wherever Daniel had discarded them and given them back to him. Or put them back, in the journal. Daniel wondered if Daniel had known or not, when Jack did it. Did Jack show him the pages? Ask him to keep them? Or did Jack secretly put them there in the journal, knowing Daniel would find them today? Knowing Daniel would not remember whether Jack had acknowledged the pages or not?

He shook his head. Well, he couldn't stay in here all day. If nothing else, eventually Jack would need to sleep.

* * *

He had delayed as long as practically possible, meeting Jack. He put on his clothes thoughtfully. He slipped out of the bedroom to the toilet with a mere grunt to the man sitting at the table.

He finally came out to the little kitchenette and started looking for a coffee mug in the cabinets.

"How'd you sleep?" Jack asked.

Daniel turned to face him. He shrugged and didn't say anything.

Jack, in turn, watched him without further comment.

After a long silence, Daniel finally asked, "So, how do we do this?"

"What?" Jack replied.

"What do I say to an old friend when I can't remember ever meeting him before?" Daniel said, with a twitching grin. "And what do _you_ say to this guy who's been missing for months and tries to shoot you when you come to the rescue?"

"Um..." said Jack, pretending to think. "Snowy out today?"

Daniel scowled, so Jack shrugged.

"Maybe we should just pretend we can pick up where we left off the night before," Jack suggested. "You can just play along like you remember, and we'll see how it goes."

Jack stood, bringing his own cup over to the counter.

"Okay," said Daniel with another shrug. "So, where did we leave off last night?"

Jack leaned his hip against the counter next to him, and reached out to touch Daniel's rumpled hair.

"Well," drawled Jack. "I cuffed you to the bed, and you got all flustered, then we made out until we were both about to cum in our pants, then we prudently agreed that sex and amnesia don't mix and I left." His fingers played softly around Daniel's ear.

"What's that supposed to mean about this morning, then?" Daniel asked, trying to keep his voice steady. He reached up and caught Jack's wrist. Without letting Jack answer, he continued, "Why did you give me the pages back?"

Jack smiled.

"That's exactly where we left off," Jack agreed.

"I don't understand," Daniel said, still holding Jack's wrist tightly.

"Alright. Maybe this will make it clearer," said Jack, and he leaned forward.

Panicking, Daniel planted his palms flat on the man's chest.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" he squeaked. "I'm not sure about this!"

"You will be in about eight hours and by then I'll have chickened out again and besides, the clock is ticking. I'd like to get moving on this while we have maximum memory time left."

Jack had stopped his advance, pressing against Daniel's hands, but not doing any more than standing close. Daniel imagined he could feel Jack's heart beating under his right palm.

"I don't know you," Daniel protested.

"Of course you do," Jack replied.

"I'm not gay," Daniel tried again.

Jack shrugged.

"So you're Jack-sexual. I'm okay with that," he said with a cocky grin. Daniel pulled a face. Jack's smile faded and he sighed.

"Look. Just... go with it. I know you feel it. You've told me three different ways in three days." His voice turned sultry. "Every single time you got your tongue in my mouth."

Daniel didn't understand how he could be so tempted. He _didn't_ know this man, and he _wasn't_ gay. But standing so close to him, feeling the urgency in the flex of his pectorals and the light brush of his breath as Jack finally leaned all the way in...

 _What the hell?_ Daniel thought. He wouldn't remember it tomorrow anyway, right?

It seemed so natural. Standing here, in the cold morning light, in this little kitchen, the taste of warm coffee on Jack's tongue.

They stood by the coffee maker, kissing, Jack quiet under the command of Daniel's two hands on his chest. It was all lips and tongues. Jack was a good kisser. A fantastic kisser. That was the reason Daniel's cock was filling so quickly.

They finally stopped. Breathing each other in, chest resting against chest, sandwiching Daniel's splayed hands between. Daniel found himself smiling. And wanting to lick Jack's smile.

"Sit?" breathed Daniel, just as Jack said, cheerfully, "Breakfast?"

Daniel groaned, stepping away from Jack and running a hand through his hair.

"You obviously don't know me very well, if you're offering me food at this time of day," Daniel said in mock reproof. "Some old friend you turned out to be."

Jack snorted.

"Years of cramming food down your throat before morning missions have taught me well," he declared. He stepped over to the table and with the dramatic flourish of a magician's assistant, presented an entirely portable repast. Banana, chocolate chip granola bar, package of mystery pop tarts and cup of blueberry yogurt.

"It can come with us to bed," Jack wheedled hopefully.

Daniel took a deep shaky breath and turned back to his coffee mug hunt. He tried to cover his nervousness with the routine business of making a cup of coffee. He was pleased his hands didn't shake. The first hot sip was liquid courage. He could hear Jack gathering up his breakfast behind them.

"Don't we need to keep guard, or something?" he asked weakly.

"Bed," Jack insisted.

"I thought this was a bad idea. You said I didn't want this," he gulped coffee like it would make everything comprehensible.

"If you get your memory back, we'll deal with it then. And if you don't get your memory back, pretty soon you won't remember anyway, so what does it hurt?"

More or less what Daniel already thought.

Except.

"You," Daniel said quietly. "You are who it will hurt."

Daniel turned his head to look at Jack. He was tall and lean and older. Fifty-ish? Daniel was reacting to him easily, watching him juggle breakfast and wanting to lick yogurt off the long, agile fingers. Feel those hands on his body.

"Come to bed, Daniel," Jack said softly.

With a suddenly pounding heart, Daniel followed him through the bedroom door.

It was one thing to know on an academic level that Jack was probably right. Daniel's journal certainly indicated that Daniel had been craving this since he met Jack three days ago.

But even if Daniel remembered them, three days were nothing. Barely time to fit in a casual invitation to coffee and a first date. But there was something about the way Jack looked at him. Hopeful and frightened and sad. How could Jack have all those feelings and Daniel have none? Well, not _none_ , exactly, just none that made sense. Nothing that had any context.

Jack lay Daniel's breakfast on the table and started taking off clothes.

 _Great body_ , Daniel thought idly. _Fascinating scars_.

Jack moved fluidly. Confidently. He was naked while Daniel still stood in confusion with his fingers resting on the hem of his shirt, not quite decided. So then he found himself face-to-face with a very naked, half-erect man, who's hands were working the fastenings on Daniel's pants.

He breathed out in a rush. "Um..."

"Let me, Daniel," Jack murmured back. Then Daniel's pants were down over his hips, and his underwear followed. Daniel finally got his brain back in gear and lifted his t-shirt over his head himself.

Jack's arms were around him, crushing their bodies together, almost before Daniel's shirt hit the floor. Daniel tried to let go – to let Jack's passion carry him past the initial strangeness, but it was hard to lose himself even in the ferocity of those kisses while his brain was capturing and categorizing all the things that were wrong with the situation.

It didn't take Jack long to catch on that there was a problem. He groaned deep in his chest and held Daniel even more tightly.

"Please, just this once, just stop thinking," Jack pleaded against his lips, firmly urging him to move the few steps to the edge of the bed, pushing him down onto the mattress, climbing onto the bed on top of him. Daniel rolled them so that Jack lay on the bottom. He could feel the older man's heart racing in his chest.

"You sure we're not going to give you a heart attack, doing this?" Daniel asked.

"Fraiser should add 'Sex with Daniel Jackson' to the stress test. It's a lot more fun than the treadmill, and I bet she wouldn't have nearly the trouble getting people to schedule their physicals."

Daniel swallowed hard as Jack leered up at him. This was not the clumsy crush of a teenaged undergrad. This was the pure hot lust of a very grown man.

It was thrill, though. Sex with a complete stranger. And a really hot stranger. And a guy. Yeah. He was definitely doing this.

He leaned down and nipped at Jack's smug smile. Then he sank back into Jack's incredible kisses, and they were even better horizontal and naked. Soon they were cocooned under the comforter, legs tangled together. Jack paused and pulled back, fingers sifting through Daniel's hair.

"I like it long."

Daniel shrugged.

"I've always worn it this way."

Jack smiled crookedly. Then Daniel thought about the picture, and gritted his teeth. He thought again how his past had been taken away. But that wasn't all. _He_ had been taken away. He felt a new wave of anger, a wave of protectiveness and affection for this not-stranger in the bed with him.

He kissed him fiercely, tugging and wrestling until Jack was on top of him again. He shoved up suggestively with his hips, and Jack didn't need any more prompting.

He was glad when Jack didn't ask him if he was sure. Or if he had done this before. It felt odd, letting himself be touched there. The feeling of fingers inside him. The whole thing was vaguely clinical, and Daniel supposed that Jack probably hadn't done this very often, either. Daniel watched Jack's face, rapt, focused, intent.

"Jack," he said. The man looked up at him, startled.

"You okay?" he asked.

"I think that's enough. Come on."

What happened next wasn't clinical at all. Jack caught his legs and lifted them, then crushed him into the mattress, smothering him with kisses as the head of his cock rubbed maddeningly against his ass, skidding off target and finding its way back again until Daniel was nearly out of his mind with anticipation.

"Come on, come on, come on!" he heard himself growling, and Jack was laughing breathlessly, changing the cant of his hips until he was _in_.

Daniel drew a sharp breath, as Jack groaned.

"Yeah."

He looked down at Daniel and, eyes on his, slowly started to press forward.

* * *

Lying there in a sweaty, disgusting heap with his new lover, Daniel wondered if this was what it was going to be like forever. Every day would be like today, with the newness and the thrill, the racing heart and the hint of fear. It had a certain appeal. Except what he loved the most about being in love were the happy, fun, easy mornings. And he was never going to have those, ever again. Not with this man, anyway.

He was sharing the pillow with Jack, who had fallen asleep. The were nose to nose and Daniel was thoroughly enjoying sharing Jack's space. But he felt broody and restless, and he decided he should get up and not disturb Jack's rest.

He spent the day rummaging through the things Jack had brought him. His missing books and his notebooks.

The light tapping at the window made his heart skip a beat. It was Morrison.

What was he supposed to do? Morrison was making a hushing gesture, beaconing Daniel across the room, pointing to the front door. Daniel hesitated, looking toward the bedroom, wondering if it was better to shout a warning to Jack or cooperate and maybe gain something through the element of surprise, when he saw that Jack was already moving, slipping on his pants, and dropping to the floor.

Daniel turned back to Morrison just as the assault crashed down on them. Windows shattered and suddenly the tiny cabin was filled with people.

Morrison pointed some kind of electricity weapon – a weird looking tazer thing – at Daniel. It hurt a lot and then he was out cold.

* * *

 _December 17_

The air inside the trunk was stifling. He hoped they knew what they were doing when they locked two people in here. Daniel had been unconscious a while. Jack was just starting to worry when a deep groan told him Daniel was waking up.

"Where am I?" he asked muzzily. He struggled to sit up, cracking his head on the lid of the truck just as Jack yelped "Careful!" Daniel swore and collapsed back down, face smashed against Jack's chest.

"Sorry!" came the muffled apology. "Are we in a car? Oh, God! We're in the trunk of a car! Morrison shot me with a tazer! He's working with – "

"Daniel! Calm down!" Jack hissed.

Daniel did stop talking, but he continued to wriggle and squirm until he was facing away from Jack.

"Daniel, you should try to – "

There was a shattering sound.

" – break out the taillight." Jack finished. There was a second crashing noise.

Daniel wriggled some more, then he had a hand out one taillight and Jack was pretty sure he was trying to stick his foot out the other.

"Who are you?" Daniel grunted. "How do you know my name?"

"I tried to stop them from attacking you, so here I am," Jack figured the white lie was much, much easier than the complicated truth.

* * *

"How much did you translate, Dr. Jackson?" Morrison asked him for seemingly the hundredth time.

Daniel was woozy from being hit in the head so many times. His lips were split and bleeding. One eye had swollen shut. He just shook his head. How many times could he say he didn't know?

"You know, Dr. Jackson, our organization doesn't have any love for your boyfriend here." The guy they’d grabbed with him – O'Neill – was in even worse shape than Daniel. They had been kicking him earlier and Daniel had seen him spit up blood. And yet O'Neill kept needling them. He seemed to be trying to distract them from Daniel. It made Daniel feel confused and grateful and guilty that the guy had gotten involved in the whole thing.

"We're asking the wrong one," the other agent said to Morrison. "Jackson obviously doesn’t remember anything. But O'Neill does." O'Neill was giving the man the evil eye.

"He won't tell us anything," Morrison said dismissively.

The other man took his gun form his shoulder holster and pointed it right between Daniel's eyes.

"Oh, I think he will," he said, turning toward O'Neill. Daniel heard the crack of the shot and felt the spray of blood. At first he couldn't figure out why he wasn't dead. He hadn't felt anything at all. Then the unnamed agent collapsed to the ground.

* * *

"How'd you find us?" Jack asked as Sam unlocked his cuffs.

She chuckled.

"Another driver reported to 911 that an arm and a foot were sticking out of the broken taillights of the car in front of her. She actually followed you until an unmarked cruiser could take over. We picked up the police activity on our radios just as we found that the cabin had been hit. Teal'c and I got in on the action when they organized the SWAT team. Dad pulled some strings with some old hunting buddies."

"Jacob's here?" Jack asked, mostly to distract himself from the pain of trying to move under his own power. He got all the way vertical before he stated vomiting blood. He heard Sam yelling for help as he passed out.

 _December 18_

Daniel sat quietly as the man in the weird leather outfit used his bizarre equipment to evaluate him. He was in the infirmary of some military facility deep under Cheyenne Mountain. It seemed strangely familiar.

When he had mentioned that to Jack, the man had made an oblique comment about how some memories must be too strong to completely erase.

Daniel was still reeling from the events of the last few days. He understood that something was wrong with him, and now he knew that Morrison was probably responsible. Apparently, Morrison had once been an agent of a rogue government agency called the Trust. Only he and a group of other Trust members had betrayed their own group, offering to aid and abet an alien invasion of Earth in exchange for positions of privilege and leadership after the aliens took over. It made Daniel's head hurt thinking about it. Or maybe that was the alien mind probe they were using on him.

He had read his journal on the flight to Colorado. At least it explained one thing. Ever since he woke up in the trunk of that car, he had been very, very aware the he must have had sexual relations recently. The only conclusion he could come up with was that he had been assaulted while he was unconscious. After reading his journal entries, however, he had to assume that he had entirely consensual intercourse with this Jack person who had been hovering all day, bullying nurses whose care he found to be not quite attentive enough, asking intrusive and presumptive questions of Daniel's doctors, and watching Daniel himself with wary attention.

"So, what's the holdup?" Jack demanded, peering over Jacob's shoulder at the device that hovered over Daniel's body.

"The holdup is that Selmak's trying to find you some good news," Jacob replied testily. Then he began speaking in the other voice. Sam had explained to Daniel that her father hosted an intelligent alien life form that was attached to his brain and nervous system. Daniel found it extremely disconcerting when the creature took control of the man's body.

"Unfortunately, Colonel, there is no easy solution. The person who tampered with Dr. Jackson's brain did irreparable damage. There is no way to either restore his lost memories or to repair his current problem with the selective, recurring amnesia."

Selmak turned to Daniel.

"Dr. Jackson, you may either continue as you are, losing certain memories every day, or we can take a more radical path to permanently restore your mind's memory functions."

"Radical doesn't sound good," Jack muttered.

"No, it doesn't," Daniel agreed.

Selmak looked regretful.

"The only way to fix your memory formation permanently is to undo everything that was done to you by the Trust. However, once we reorder the necessary pathways, I am fairly certain that the result will be an almost completely blank slate."

Daniel just shut his eyes.

"So that's it," Jack said flatly. "Back to Texas for you, Dr. Jackson.

"No," Daniel said.

"What do you mean, no?" Jack replied. "You'll have a great life in Texas. You've got a department, research, students..."

"General Hammond offered me my old job as head of the Archaeology and Linguistics departments this morning," Daniel replied. "Obviously, I won't be able to participate in missions or go off world, but I can remember the work, just like I can remember alien languages. I'll just need daily assistance remembering the context. Which we know I can handle with written messages to myself. I can already tell that the work here is more interesting and important than anything I'll ever do in Texas."

Jack stared at him for a long, heavy moment.

"Come live with me," Jack blurted.

Daniel thought about his diary entries, meeting Jack's gaze unflinchingly.

"Thank you," he said.

"Sam will be so happy," Jacob said wryly, breaking the mood.

"Yeah, yeah," Jack replied with a smile.

 _February 2, several years later_

"Thor, old buddy, old pal!" Jack yelled delightedly. "Long time, no see! How are you and yours?"

"The Asgard are quite well, O'Neill. As, it seems, are you." Jack would swear the little guy was smiling. "You are not in uniform?"

Jack bounced on the balls of his feet.

"Nope! It's been a crazy ten years or so, buddy. I can't wait to tell you all about it. But seriously. It's been a long time. We figured you guys were goners."

Thor inclined his head.

"It has indeed been a crazy ten years, as you say. In brief, we have defeated the Replicators and have come here as quickly as we could now that we have won our war, in hopes of finding something left to salvage here. We assumed the protected planets treaty would have failed long ago, after such a prolonged neglect on our part. And instead we find the galaxy free of the goa'uld, a Jaffa nation built and thriving, and Earth at the forefront of peaceful trade among the peoples of the Milky Way. Your success will be a legend amongst the Asgard, O'Neill."

"Aw," said Jack with a grin. "You always say the nicest things."

Thor made the little high-pitched humming noise that Jack figured was the Asgard version of a chuckle.

"But now that you're here, you should come and tour our new, civilian-operated, Earth Intergalactic Exploration Agency."

"Civilian control?" Thor repeated. "That is excellent, O'Neill. But I assume this means General Hammond is no longer in command? I hope he is well?"

"Oh, yeah! George retired about five years ago right after the program had to go public. The final fight with the goa'uld was pretty hard to miss from anywhere on, oh, the surface of the Earth."

"I am anxious to hear the entire story," Thor said. "Are you the leader of this facility now?"

"Leader?" Jack said, rolling his eyes. "If you can call it that. Most days it's like herding cats. Come on, Supreme Commander. I've got a special problem I've been waiting for years to get your help on."

 _September 28_

Someone was shaking Daniel awake. It was too early to be getting up. He felt thick-headed, like he always did after a late night working. Then there was the stretchy – ew crusty – condition of his lower regions – not to mention the wet spot he had obviously slept in... He must have been doing more than research last night.

He opened a bleary eye to glare at his tormentor, who at least had the decency and foresight to be thrusting a cup of very hot coffee into Daniel's face, forestalling any grumbling. Daniel just groped for the cup and reached for his diary at the same time. It was so odd. He knew that he had been doing essentially the same thing every morning for years now, and yet he knew it was always a surprise when he read the explanatory letter folded on top of the journal.

The paper was worn and well handled, with several sections heavily hand-corrected.

 _Hello,_

 _As you know, you are in your own bed in your own house._

 _Now for the recap._

 _You have permanent brain damage that causes you to have certain, very specific problems with your memory. The man in the bed next to you – or in the kitchen, or already gone to work – is Jack O'Neill. That's his picture, by the bed._


  
Daniel paused to look at the picture, then the man himself, who had settled into the armchair in the corner with his own coffee. He was working on a crossword puzzle, occasionally snickering to himself.

 _You came to live with Jack ~~a year~~ ~~two~~ ~~three~~ ~~four~~ ~~five~~ ~~six~~ seven years ago (see Journal 1, December 18), partially to make it easier to continue your work. Your memory problem is that you cannot remember the place where you work or anything about it (1, 12/13-14)._

 _However, as you can see reviewing the earliest entries in Journal 1, you fall madly in love with Jack everyday. As you have probably also already realized by now, you and Jack are lovers._

 _Jack is completely devoted to you and long ago you decided to pretend that you remember your life together to try to make things more normal for him. He pretends you aren't pretending and things aren't too awkward._

 _I suggest you review the last week or so of entries to get up to speed, then go with the flow._

 _Good luck!_

 _Daniel_

 _Addendum: And brace yourself – you got married two years ago (10, 12/24) when President Hammond signed the National Marriage Rights Bill into law._




He looked up to find Jack watching him. His husband. How the hell was he supposed to pretend he wasn't in shock?

"Just read yesterday's," Jack suggested. Though Daniel didn't know him, he seemed tense. Worried.

"Okay," Daniel agreed.

 _I am never going to believe this tomorrow._

 _Jack tells me that tomorrow I'm going to meet Thor. Yes. That Thor. Thor, the Norse God. Thor, who is apparently the prototype for anal probing aliens. Thor is representative of an alien species known as the Asgard. He's an old friend of mine apparently. About a year ago, Jack managed to consult him about my memory problem and a team of Asgard scientists has been looking for a way to restore my ability to correctly form long-term memories without turning me into a vegetable first._

 _According to Jack, they think they've found a solution. Today, I get to find out what it is._




* * *

"Unfortunately, that's the best we can do," Thor said sadly.

"So I get all my memories back from before the Trust messed with my brain," Daniel said, "but you won't be able to salvage or reconstruct anything _after_ that?"

"That is correct," Thor nodded.

Daniel was intensely disappointed. He wanted to remember Jack. He wanted it very badly. Every time he caught his husband watching him, he knew that all the insane things written in his journal were true. This man loved him. And Daniel loved him in return. He wanted a real memory of their first-time together. Of their wedding day. Of their entire strange life and relationship. But in order to make their relationship real, he had to be willing to give it up and have faith in himself that he would find his way back to Jack one final time.

"I want to go ahead with the procedure," Daniel said with certainty. Jack looked like he might be ill.

* * *

Daniel lay down in their bed. He had insisted.

"I want it to be as real for me as possible. If I wake up in _our_ bed in _our_ house, it will make it easier to accept the rest of it."

Jack wasn't sure that was true.

"Kiss me?" Daniel asked him, the sedatives were already kicking in, but Daniel sounded anxious despite the drugs. He was rotating his wedding band with his thumb, something he did almost every morning while reading his life from a handwritten manual.

Ignoring Thor and the medical staff assembled to assist him, Jack lay down in the bed by his husband and kissed him until he fell asleep.

He would have said no, but how could he when he wasn't sure he'd ever get another chance?

 _September 29_

Daniel woke up in a strange bed in a strange place. When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Jack, slumped in a big, comfortable-looking arm chair in the corner, clearly sitting vigil. Daniel groaned in anticipation of the pain of moving. He didn't remember what had happened, but he knew the signs of waking up in the infirmary.

Except the signs were all wrong, because when he started moving, he felt great. And when he sat up and reached for his glasses he could see clearly that he was not anywhere medical.

That was odd. He could see clearly. Had he slept in his glasses? He awkwardly pawed himself in the nose. Nope.

"Huh," he said, then noticed that Jack was watching him. Jack looked really worried. OK. Was he in an alien hospital off world, maybe?

"You finally had laser surgery this spring," Jack told him. He smiled tensely.

"No, I definitely didn't," Daniel said. "Where are we?"

Jack pointed to a stack of thick spiral-bound notebooks on the bedside table.

"You've got seven years of background reading to cover," Jack said. "Let me go make coffee while you get started."

* * *

When he came back, Daniel was sitting in the arm chair staring vacantly into space. Three different notebooks were open on his lap, stacked one on top of the other. His fingers were moving very lightly over the pages. Another of Daniel's mannerisms when reading these particular notes. Jack swallowed hard.

 _It's going to be OK_ , he told himself.

"Hey," he said.

Daniel's eyes refocused. He looked at Jack a long time, his cheeks coloring slightly, but his gaze not flinching away. Daniel was examining him, searching his face.

"It's a lot to take in," Daniel finally said. He was twisting his ring again.

"I tried to convince you getting married was a bad idea," Jack said, though it wasn’t what he really wanted to say.

Daniel nodded.

"So I read," he said, lifting the bottom notebook on his knees. He smiled weakly.

"I just want to be clear that I understand things are different for you now. We're starting with a whole different set of assumptions."

Daniel had that distant look again.

"Yes," he agreed. "You're retired. Even if you weren't, homosexuals can serve openly now. Our marriage is legally recognized, thanks to _President_ Hammond. We own real estate together. A very different set of assumptions." Jack opened his mouth to say that wasn't what he meant, but Daniel waved him off. "I know," he said with a twitchy smile, lifting the journals again to remind him. "I read them all. Twice, actually."

Jack stood braced in the doorway while Daniel fell silent again. Finally, he said, "It's going to take a while to sort this out."

Jack nodded and left.

* * *

Daniel explored the house. He liked it. Which only made sense, he supposed. That had been a bizarre series of days, according to his diaries, choosing and buying the house. He found Jack in his pottery shop. The mind boggled. He wasn't doing anything, though. His hands were still clean. He looked so much older. Seven years. It was a long time to have lost.

"Are we good together?" Daniel asked him.

Jack looked up from the empty spinning pottery wheel.

"It's hard to say," Jack replied. "For you, every day was the first day we met."

Daniel walked into the little room and took a seat on the stool at the glazing bench.

"I feel like someone else told you one of my oldest secrets," Daniel said. "And now you know it and have accepted it and built your life around it and I'm not even sure how I even feel about it and I definitely never planned for you to ever find out."

"I understand that," Jack said hastily. "We can deal with this however you want. Divorce. Sell the house. Whatever. The lawyer I talked to said we could probably get an annulment. We'll do whatever you want," Jack trailed off.

"Yeah, but that's the thing," Daniel said. " _We_ have to do this. I went to sleep last night an _I_ and I woke up this morning a _we_. With you. Nothing can undo the past seven years for you, for,” he waved his hand to indicate the rest of the world, “even if I can’t remember it.”

Jack visibly swallowed, his eyes falling back to the still wheel in front of him.

Daniel slid off the stool, closing the distance between them.

"I like the house," he said. Jack looked up. He was still strikingly handsome, even silver-haired and nearly a decade older.

"I think we should keep it," Daniel continued. Jack's eyebrows went up in surprise.

"I think we should continue sleeping in the same bed," Daniel felt his cheeks get hot. Jack was suddenly smiling. He surged to his feet, so they were standing nose-to-nose, though he clearly checked himself before wrapping his arms around his friend.

"Though I have no intention of putting out right away," Daniel protested, but he felt himself smiling, too. Jack's grin was turning positively wolfish.

"You almost never do. Intend, that is," Jack said, in a way that was completely _not_ reassuring.

"Eventually, we're going to have to renew our vows," Daniel went on, but Jack did stop him then with a crushing hug and a kiss that left Daniel breathless and reeling.

 _What am I doing?_ he asked himself. But there really was no point. Just like Jack said. He had not walked out of their bedroom intending to say these things, but once he was in the same room with Jack he knew he wanted to try this. He couldn't ask Jack to rewind seven years, even though Daniel was certain Jack was true to his word and would do whatever Daniel asked him to do. No. It was better to jump in with both feet and trust that everything would be OK when he landed.

* * *

"Eventually, we're going to have to renew our vows," Daniel said, then it all faded to static. Jack was holding him and kissing him, and maybe it was their last first time, but Jack was sick of first times. He wanted to explore and share and remember. He was a little afraid, too. He had Daniel back now. Not the overwhelmed academic, displaced from a tiny Texas college archaeology department, but Daniel Jackson, peaceful explorer, conqueror of Ra and Unas alike.

He broke off the kiss and stared into Daniel's sparkling eyes.

"Did you see the upstairs?" he asked, grinning. "Did the movers ever hate you, getting all those books up there!" And he took his husband by the hand and dragged him up to their converted attic for the first time.


End file.
